“All the tired horses in the sun
How am I supposed to get any riding done?”
Bob Dylan, All the Tired Horses

The closer on Dylan’s latest album Shadow Kingdom is a catchy instrumental tune called Sierra’s Theme. Despite Dylan’s obvious genius as a wordsmith, I find many of his instrumentals pleasant to listen to. Most of the following are from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (still my favourite soundtrack ever) and Self Portrait (not my worst Dylan album); some of these songs contain Dylan humming, moaning, crooning, droning or coughing but not forming words as such, so I’m counting them as instrumentals.

Main Title Theme (Billy) [Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

Nashville Skyline Rag [Nashville Skyline, 1969]

Woogie Boogie [Self Portrait, 1970]

Sierra’s Theme [Shadow Kingdom, 2023]
Threatening to go into either All Along the Watchtower or Hurricane, I’m not sure.

Wigwam [Self Portrait, 1970]

Final Theme 
[Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

Cantina Theme (Workin’ for the Law) [Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

Bunkhouse Theme [Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

River Theme [Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

Turkey Chase [Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973]

All the Tired Horses [Self Portrait, 1970]
Obviously not an instrumental per se, but it contains no Dylan vocals and has the feel of an instrumental. I used to think the lyric was ‘How am I supposed to get any writing done?’ as a comment on the content of the album Self Portrait, being made up of cover versions, live tracks and, well, instrumentals. The song was chosen by painter Peter Doig as one of his recent Desert Island Discs on Radio 4.

Suze (The Cough Song) [The Bootleg Series Vols.1-3, 1963 outtake]